The Con within the Con within the Con

Who doesn’t love a good heist flick? It seems like every few years we get another movie that wants to kickstart the heist genre once more, with a ragtag group of charismatic ne'er-do-wells looking to make one big score so they can ride off into the sunset and live a life of luxury. When we think of these movies our brains naturally turn to Ocean's Eleven, the film that not only kickstarted the era of modern heist films, but the one that made it as absolutely cool as it could be. Above all else, Ocean’s Eleven oozed cool.

Few films since then have managed to find that same level of cool. Hell, even the other films in the Ocean's SeriesAlthough the franchise began back in the days of the Rat Pack with the original Ocean's 11, the franchise truly gained prominence with the Clooney/Pitt-starring, Soderbergh-directed Ocean's reboot series from 2001. The daring criminals would go on to have several cool and stylish capers through the series, redefining the heist genre in the process. series haven’t managed to be nearly as cool. They’re sometimes sharp, sometimes interesting, and they can even sometimes have a pretty good heist, but very rarely is the mix just right where they even are able to approach Ocean’s Eleven. The ones that stand out try to do something different, like a really elaborate heist, such as in the 2003 The Italian Job. Or they add a sci-fi twist, like in Inception. Or sometimes they just go for over-the-top action in the midst of a brainless franchise, such as Fast Five. But still, over them all, hangs the shadow of Ocean’s Eleven.

Confidence, released in 2003, was very clearly trying to be the next Ocean’s Eleven. You have a group of cons, all crafting the most elaborate heist they can. They’re working against a bad guy (or, since these guys are thieves, I suppose we should say “a worse guy”) that clearly needs to get taken down a peg. And it tries very, very hard to be cool. What works against the film is a smaller budget, a grimier setting, and the fact that while well directed by James Foley (who also directed The Corruptor and Glengarry Glen Ross), it lacks that slickness that people were expecting from a heist film at that point.

All of which is to say that while a solid enough film, Confidence came and went at the Box Office without making a huge impression. On a budget of $15 Mil, the film with its stacked, B-list cast, wasn’t able to attract much attention, making only $23 Mil during its theatrical run. Hell, I didn’t even hear about the film when it came out at the time, finding it later on Blockbuster shelves instead. I thought it was pretty decent, a smart and snappy little heist film very much of its era… and then I forgot it even existed until it came up on my streaming queue recently to remind me, “oh, right, there was a film called Confidence…”

The film opens in medias res, with a seeming heist gone wrong. The cops are on the trail of our group of confidence men – Edward Burns as the face, Jake Vig; Paul Giamatti as the backup, Gordo; Brian Van Holt as the muscle, Miles, and Louis Lombardi as Alphonse "Big Al" Moorley, their body man – along with an accomplice. Things get heated, Big Al gets shot, and their accomplice goes running, heading away from the crime scene before the cops arrive. Except that’s exactly the plan, as Big Al isn’t really dead and the cops, Officers Omar Manzano (Luis Guzmán) and Lloyd Whitworth (Donal Logue), are in on the fix, taking their cut before letting our crew head off with their latest score.

Except the guys aren’t really free and clear. That money they stole was actually a payoff for a larger criminal, Winston "The King" King (Dustin Hoffman), and once he learns that is money was taken, he wants his pound of flesh. He gets wind that Big Al was one of the men that stole the money, and he has his goons take Big Al out. The rest of the crew decide that going to The King is better than running, so they strike a deal: one bigger score, for five million, on the target of The King’s choice, and then they’re square. But you have to watch closely, because you can never truly believe that any score these guys pull will be exactly how it looks…

The greatest strength of Confidence is its twisty nature. The film, from the get go, shows you a scenario and then, minutes later, illustrates how you were wrong and how it was all part of the scam. This is the film tipping its hand a little because it’s clearly saying, “yeah, you thought this is what you were getting but let us pull back the curtain and show you what was really happening.” It’s pretty obvious early on that the guys are working a scheme, even as they’re supposedly working for The King. The big question is just what the actual scheme entails and how they’re going to get away with it.

To that end, the film introduces a ton of red herrings. It has additional characters that it throws in, various side plots that feed into the main plot, or seemingly work as distractions from it. Is the new member of the team they bring in, Lily (Rachel Weisz), working for them or playing her own angle. Will the Fed that’s been sniffing around the scheme, Special Agent Gunther Butan (Andy García), ruin their plans or is he a known quantity that’s accounted for? The film leaves you guessing right up until the end so that the final flourish comes as a shock.

Or, at least, that’s what it wants anyway. As I noted above, a big issue for the film is that it’s not as slick as Ocean’s Eleven, and that works directly against the film when it comes to its big heist. The story itself is well executed, and the elements of the heist are well written. But the film isn’t as slick or cool as it needs to be so it doesn’t do as good of a job distracting you or keeping you guessing. The plot is elaborate but the direction and production aren’t able to suck you in to the level that’s needed. It’s grimier, dirtier atmosphere keeps you just out of the heist enough that you’re never left guessing like you should be. When the final twist comes (and I won’t ruin what it is), you’re sitting there going, “yep, that makes sense,” instead of being left in awe over what just happened.

It also doesn’t help that this film feels very of its time and moment. It’s loaded with a cast of B-listers, some of whom already seem too good for the material they're in, like Rachel Weisz and Paul Giamatti. Others are so clearly from this era, like lead actor Edward Burns, that you really couldn’t see him headlining a film in any other film era. He’s perfect for the type of film that Confidence wanted to be, but that’s largely because Burns wears this film around him like a coat. He’s perfectly grimy in this film, and the movie is perfectly grimy enough for him.

And it struggles, at times, to be anything more than an early 2000s heist film. Ocean’s Eleven feels timeless, so slickly produced that even today movies are still desperately trying to live up to its cool. No one is looking at Confidence and saying, “yeah, this film could be made today.” It’s very specifically of its moment, from its actors to the chauvinistic way some of the characters act, to the fact that the lead villain isn’t just creepy but gay too, as if “being gay ups his creepiness”. The mindset of the film often betrays its era and you really wish the film could get a slightly better edit now to remove these bad moments.

That’s what holds the film back from being a forgotten classic. It has the story, the twists, and the solid moments, but there’s a tinge to the film that leaves it feeling somewhat off. I liked the film when I watched it again, but my opinion of it remains unchanged. It has something here that could be really good… but it’s never going to be a classic I return to over and over again. It’s no Ocean’s Eleven.